Columbia PhD in Ancient History says Jesus never existed

[alwayson]

How do Christians respond to Dr. Richard Carrier?

There are several lectures and debates with him on youtube.

[TheTruth101]

Utter non-sense.

[Mithrae]

How do Christians respond to Dr. Richard Carrier?

There are several lectures and debates with him on youtube.

Hopefully we don't need to be Christians to respond.


Richard Carrier - The Historicity of Jesus

A few thoughts...

At 5:30 - Carrier suggests that that 'euhemerization' was "one of the most common things going on in ancient religion." But he misrepresents 'Euhemerization' (not a recognised scholarly term btw). Euhemeros believed that the divine myths were poeticized embellishments of the deeds or significance of great men, so for example a god of medicine curing a plague might derive from a noteworthy physician saving some town. What Carrier is talking about is a (supposedly) common Greek practice of placing known divine beings in new earthly stories/settings, not a practice of theorizing genuine earthly origins for divine myths. He compounds this by confusing legend and myth; the legend of Rome's founding involving Romulus is presented as an example of an already-divine being who was later placed in an earthly setting.


14:40 - Some hefty generalisations about various 'saviour gods'; notably "all undergo a 'passion'" and "all have stories about them set in human history on earth." An offer of hope for defeating our greatest fear (death) might be common, and stories about different gods were common and varied enough that some being set in human history is unsurprising. In fairness he does jokingly criticise the absurdities presented by the likes of Zeitgeist, but to my mind he's trying to use little more than coincidences and gneral human nature and culture to fit these stories into a specific common mould.


17:00 - Supposedly Philo tells us that amongst Jews there was a celestial being actually named Jesus(!?), who was the image of God, his firstborn son, the agent of creation and the celestial high priest. Since Philo is among the most commonly-cited folk who did not mention Jesus, I won't be rushing off to buy Carrier's book to find his references and try to decipher how he managed to get this out of Philo's works.


18:40 - Flippant, uninformative talk of various things happening in 'outer space'; a laugh at some ancient folks' unsophistication, without any content about celestial spheres or the like. Carrier claims that Osiris lived on earth but died and rose again in outer space, without explaining why he thinks this sudden change in location occurred; though it affords us the opportunity to note that we needn't necessarily read stories about these deities lives as being earthly events, potentially undermining his earlier 'euhemerization' point.


22:00 - In discussing Paul's letters, Carrier neglects to mention his reference to Jesus' brothers (and James in particular, who is also mentioned by Josephus). Carrier places great emphasis on Paul's reference to revelation and scripture as his sources of knowledge, without bothering to mention that possible tension between Paul and Jesus' disciples would have made it difficult for him to appeal to human authority. That's actually a major point of Galatians (which Carrier quotes); that Paul's views were endorsed by Jesus' disciples, but that he didn't need to appeal to them for his authority.


29:30 - Carrier suggests that Mark invented an eclipse from whole cloth, which as far as I can tell is deception by omission at best: Carrier knows (it's mentioned in one of his infidels.org articles) that there was in fact a midday eclipse in the middle east during the rule of Pontius Pilate (29 CE to be precise, in August if memory serves).

[stubbornone]

How do Christians respond to Dr. Richard Carrier?

There are several lectures and debates with him on youtube.

Its called being a rabble rouser.

Jesus Denial has been shot down time and time again by historians. One more adding to the list of angry atheists ... whose works get torn apart by peer review ... won't change anything.

http://bede.org.uk/jesusmyth.htm

"Robert Van Voorst

It is also obvious that the diverse and all but completely unanimous opinion of modern Jesus scholars and relevant historians remain completely unconvinced by the Jesus Myth arguments. Robert Van Voosrt writes in Jesus Outside the New Testament:

Contemporary New Testament scholars have typically viewed their arguments as so weak or bizarre that they relegate them to footnotes, or often ignore them completely.... The theory of Jesus' nonexistence is now effectively dead as a scholarly question."

http://bede.org.uk/price1.htm

The simplest way to check is not by dueling quotes though, its by actually doing the research, as opposed to thinking facts are ... based on popularity, or the fact that someone is a Ph.D and thus never lies, and see what you find ...

Well I did ... and now I am no longer an atheist.

Go figure.

[99percentatheism]

How do Christians respond to Dr. Richard Carrier?

There are several lectures and debates with him on youtube.

Another super egotist that seeks attention.

This is LITERALLY a worn out subject matter, but how many people like wearing old blue jeans.

What ever happened to that silly movie called the god who wasn't there?

Just pat this school employee on the head and tell him to move on.

[alwayson]

Carrier makes a pretty convincing case though.

At this point I'm convinced the gospels are 100% fiction.

[alwayson]

It is also obvious that the diverse and all but completely unanimous opinion of modern Jesus scholars and relevant historians remain completely unconvinced by the Jesus Myth arguments. .

yes but as Carrier points out, there are two types of mythicists. There is the bullshit kind. And then there is his kind, which are based on sound academic arguments going back centuries.

[alwayson]

14:40 - Some hefty generalisations about various 'saviour gods'; notably "all undergo a 'passion'" and "all have stories about them set in human history on earth." An offer of hope for defeating our greatest fear (death) might be common, and stories about different gods were common and varied enough that some being set in human history is unsurprising. In fairness he does jokingly criticise the absurdities presented by the likes of Zeitgeist, but to my mind he's trying to use little more than coincidences and gneral human nature and culture to fit these stories into a specific common mould.

I took several courses in Greek myth at a respected university.

You can't tell me that Jesus is not ripped off of Dionysus.

In fact one Dionysus play that survived, survived because they just swapped out Dionysus for Jesus. Its been awhile, but off the top of my head I think it was Euripides' Bacchae.

[99percentatheism]

alwayson

14:40 - Some hefty generalisations about various 'saviour gods'; notably "all undergo a 'passion'" and "all have stories about them set in human history on earth." An offer of hope for defeating our greatest fear (death) might be common, and stories about different gods were common and varied enough that some being set in human history is unsurprising. In fairness he does jokingly criticise the absurdities presented by the likes of Zeitgeist, but to my mind he's trying to use little more than coincidences and gneral human nature and culture to fit these stories into a specific common mould.

I took several courses in Greek myth at a respected university.

"Respected university" is a matter of personal opinion. And of course qualifixation to be e member in the politics clique.

As a Christian, I'd say that Harvard, a once decent Christian institution, pumps out nothing but elitists and egotists. The last two presidents lend to that opinion as being solid.

You can't tell me that Jesus is not ripped off of Dionysus.

Who would bother?

In fact one Dionysus play that survived, survived because they just swapped out Dionysus for Jesus. Its been awhile, but off the top of my head I think it was Euripides' Bacchae.

Conclusion

"What more needs be said? The Christ-Dionysus parallel has very little to commend it. What few parallels exist are based on universal conceptions and themes. Moreover, to make his argument persuasive, the claimant must explain how and why a group of Palestinian Jews borrowed the theology and teachings of a foreign cult and founded a new religion based upon them. He must also explain why the parallels between the doctrine taught by Jesus and that of contemporary Judaism were so similar, not to mention why the early Christians initially maintained the trappings of Jewish religious observation (Temple attendance, circumcision, etc.).

In fact, the only Apostle who might reasonably be expected to have had any reasonably detailed knowledge of pagan religion was the educated rabbi, Saul/Paul - and it utterly defies credibility that a professed and professing Pharisee, let alone a pupil of Gamaliel, would or even could have taken control of a group of Palestinian peasants and turned them into proselytizing Messianic Bacchus-worshippers."

- http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/dionysus.html

[alwayson]

http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/dionysus.html

Thank you for this website. I needed a good laugh.

It will probably alarm you that they have been teaching Jesus / Savior parallels in college way before Freke and Gandy, whom I agree are bullshit mythicists.